Emptyflower® Internal Martial Arts - Taiji Bagua Xingyi: Emptyflower® Internal Martial Arts - Taiji Bagua Xingyi -> Weakness.......... Starting Off On The Wrong Foot

Worked on Na and getting out of bad situations over the weekend. Clinches and getting locked up never has been a favourite place of mine, so working on a weakness in posture or position and finding ways to move out of it is a good one for me. As a rule I try not to get captured, held, pushed or impacted on in any way without turning. This way I generally throw of whatever force is landing on me. However letting someone put locks on or grabs and dealing with it from a position of weakness (leaning backward, having arm or head locked or being steam-rolled) is good practice. Not that I ever really want to be in a position like that but some of the techniques I use can be pretty risky and have the potential to go horribly wrong. Starting off in a compromised position also helps to tighten up the moves and find smaller spaces to fit into to turn the situation around.

On reflection, these are the things that shone out for me. There is always a point of weakness in your opponents attack; in getting out of a tight spot (lock or clinch) finding the opponents empty and spiraling/peircing through it is pretty key; and if you can step in another direction (no matter how small) it seems to split his attention and disrupt his balance long enough to turn it around. Also stepping to a position where he is brought outside his base is very helpful. Another thing related to this was that footwork is so important. Knowing the direction you want to go in order to move into a better position goes hand in hand(no pun intended) with the feet being well set up for the task. This sounds obvious but really takes presence of mind when pressed. Also precursing every move with a movement in the opposite direction assists in finding space to get things started and on the move. Other things that helped once it was possible were, striking/stomping as soon as possible to distract; jostling and standing on the foot to unbalance him.

As I said it is not at all where I would want to be, and work hard to avoid these positions, but as the classics tell us, those who look for problems tend to encounter them the least

On the weakness theme; I picked up a couple of nasty bruises on the shins. This keeps happening from time to time, and is very annoying. I can attack quite well with my legs, but I get caught with the short kicks at close range too often to say that I'm good at defending. I will have to look into improving this; maybe better guarding on the way in? I'll have to check it out.

I finally got hold of My freind David and we will start training again this week. He is six foot plus, a good kicker and doesn't let me get away with much. He is going to pull a few of his mates into it as well. Looking forward to this.